Nature and history pass through Anna’s hands as she weaves using willow she grows, cuts, sorts and prepares herself. She also uses willow that was grown elsewhere in Scotland organically or conventionally in Somerset. Every year in the early spring you will find Anna in the willow patch with friends, harvesting the year’s crop, hand weeding and restocking for next year. The first crop was cut from the willow patch in 2005, the year her daughter was born. Anna grows eight types of willow in the patch, of different colours, hues and elasticity. Some of them are stout, making them ideal for a basket’s skeleton. Others are long and slender, and can be woven in and out of small spaces. Anna aims to contrast the dappled hues of the different willow barks within her work. Through the year, particularly as she is creating baskets and forms using her home grown willow, the affection for the material carries on through the work. The baskets are things of beauty; sturdy and precise.
Anna was drawn to basketmaking whilst her children were tiny and she lived and worked at a small land-focussed housing co-operative set in 50 acres of farmland in Lanarkshire. A want for beautiful toy baskets coupled with the unsuitability of metal work (her previous passion) around toddlers and an abundance of natural materials on the land led her to thinking that making her own baskets would be a good idea. A lot of willow had been planted at the co-operative for habitat creation, wind shelter, and craft use. Anna became aware of the versatility of willow and was inspired by its zero carbon footprint. She loved the fact that she could create a basket with the use of no fossil fuels bar those involved in the production of the secateurs and the chocolate she ate during the harvesting!
Other basketmakers, ludicrous perfectionism, and a fear of making unsturdy products, have greatly helped Anna on her way. She moved to Edinburgh 12 years ago and started selling her products at the Portobello farmer's market, and teaching locally. She finds passing on skills and knowledge to fascinated people hugely rewarding and now teaches extensively in the city and beyond. She still attends craft markets around the city and sells her work in galleries around Scotland.
She has taught for the Scottish Lime Centre, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh,The Big Tree Society, Palacerigg Country Park, Urban Roots Glasgow, Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspaces Trust, the Edinburgh Spinners Weavers and Dyers Guild, Leith Community Crops in Pots Carbon College, and Jupiter Artland to name a few.
Anna has been the Basketry Tutor at the Poldrate Arts and Crafts Centre in Haddington since 2014, developing improvers’ and advanced classes to run alongside the beginners class; where she has been working with the students to reach new skills and basketry techniques that were not part of the classes before.
Anna also enjoys working on commissions both traditional and modern, repair and restoration work, and larger scale installations…and has completed a willow boat bird hide for children in Fife, woven willow tipis and other installations for the Eden Festival in Dumfries and Galloway, made (and burnt) a fire sculpture for the Fire and Light Festival on New Year's Day at the Kelpies in Falkirk, created sculptures on the beach in Portobello, fixed colossal baskets at Jupiter Artland, and in Autumn 2017, worked with the Enchanted Forest to produce three enormous sculptures for their sound and light show near Pitlochry: the theme ‘Edge of the Water’ leading to the creation of three huge woven willow lighthouses.
Anna is a member of the Scottish Basketmakers’ Circle, having spent some years on their committee and editing their newsletter for three of those, the Basketmakers Association, Scottish Working Woods, and the Heritage Crafts Association.